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Jerry Karthauser holds a photograph that shows him eating cake with Marilyn Monroe during the Korean War. His son found the photograph on the internet and had it framed and placed in a mailbag that each veteran receives on the ride home from an Honor Flight.
Stars and Stripes Honor, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Jerry Karthauser points to himself in a photo of Marilyn Monroe and another unidentified person that was taken in 1954 where Karthauser was an Army cook in Korea, during visit from Monroe.
Mike De Sisti/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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Jerry Karthauser points to a photo of himself with Marilyn Monroe and another soldier taken in 1954 in Korea where Karthauser was an Army cook during Monroes visit. For years, he has been telling people he met and fed Monroe. He remembers a press photo was taken of them, but he never got one or saw it. On an Honor Flight last Friday the photo was presented to him as a surprise. His son Brad had tracked it down online after all these years.(Photo: Mike De Sisti, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)Buy Photo

If an Army cook meets Marilyn Monroe and doesn't have a photo to prove it, did it really happen?

For 63 years now, Jerry Karthauser has been insisting it's true. He fed lunch to the stunning starlet when she showed up in Korea to entertain the troops.

His wife, Mary, has heard the tale plenty of times. "He had a kiss from her, he cooked for her, and for all these 60-plus years, people were just sort of yeah, yeah, yeah," she said.

Well, now the 85-year-old Thiensville man finally has photographic evidence of their meeting, and it came in dramatic style during a Stars and Stripes Honor Flight from Milwaukee to the war memorials in Washington, D.C., last Friday.

Jerry's son, Brad of Kansas City, tracked down the photo on the internet where it was hiding in plain sight. He had it framed and placed in the mailbag that each veteran on the Honor Flight receives on the ride home.

Brad had tried to find the photo before, usually searching for images of the actress kissing soldiers. That's the story he had heard, too.

Turns out Jerry was embellishing a bit. "I always claim I got a kiss on my right cheek, but I think that's a fable," the retired wholesale florist now admits. A man can dream.

Knowing the Honor Flight was coming up, Brad widened his search and found the photo of Jerry, Marilyn and another soldier. They're all eating cake in the black-and-white pic.

Jerry was single at the time, February of 1954, and assigned to headquarters company 2nd Infantry Division near Seoul, South Korea. The mess hall denizens had sent Marilyn a hand-drawn invitation to lunch.

Marilyn was newly married to baseball great Joe DiMaggio. On their honeymoon to Japan, she took a detour to perform 10 shows in four days for American troops in Korea.

Many photos of that tour exist. Jerry, who grew up in Thiensville, was told the one taken of him would be sent to his hometown newspaper, but he doesn't think it ever ran around here. Jerry captured a few snapshots of Marilyn during the visit, but he's not in them because selfies were not a thing yet.

Brad was surprised to see where the Getty image has run over the years.

"I found it in a copy of Marie Claire magazine in Spain. My dad and Marilyn Monroe are being used to sell a diet product. I also found that same photo on Japanese sites, Korean sites, just all over the world," he said.

"She stood outside on a Jeep and signed autographs for a long, long time. It was a cold day. I remember that. She had a flight jacket on," he said.

Stunned by receiving the elusive photo on the Honor Flight, Jerry passed it around for others to see. Now, it will have a place of honor at home, and Mary denies she's the slightest bit jealous when she looks at her husband and Marilyn Monroe making eyes.

"It's a nice story because it's 60-plus years in the making," she said.